Understanding At The End
by Kushin eX
Summary: A oneshot I made because I am disgusted by the amount of Yaoi in the section. It's about Kumi, Nanako and their feelings towards Ippo.


Kumi Mashiba was many things to those in her life, loved, protected, admired and ignored

Hey guys, this is a simple oneshot as inspired by my beta, Lucifer-Allheart.

The theme is Understanding.

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Understanding At The End

Kumi Mashiba was many things to those in her life, loved, protected, admired and ignored. She was the sister of Ryo Mashiba, The Executioner of the Junior Lightweight class. Sometimes, she would come home to the apartment she shared with her brother and cry her eyes out. She was a relative to a champion, the cause of her agony. He followed her, like a devoted and extremely overgrown pitbull, everywhere. When she wanted some time alone with Ippo, she couldn't get it because of _him_. Then there was the sister of Manabu, she constantly came to see Ippo while Manabu and him worked at the fishing shop. It infuriated her.

Nanako Itagaki was alone. She acted as the hyper child of the family but inside she was killing herself daily. She truly wanted Ippo, not because he was the champion or even for those muscles, just for being him. She wasn't anything special, she had average grades and she could barely keep up during gym lessons. What she did have was something that a previous boyfriend had told her. She was cute. And she took advantage of this in every way.

The two had met before at the swimming pool, and various times after that. One thing sprung between the two. They both understood each other. They both longed for the chance to have a date with Ippo. While it annoyed them to the ninth levels of hell to admit it, they needed each other.

Ippo soon had to make a choice, it was at his match with Miyata. Miyata had surpassed him faster than had seemed possible. He had taken the World Champion belt from Ricardo Martinez in the 8th round by TKO, he had cut deeply into the champions guard twice and had blinded him by cutting him across both eyebrows. Said champion was not happy but admitted a TKO on condition of a rematch. It was then that Kamogawa Gym called in their favour of priority challenging rights. So it was agreed that Ippo Makunouchi would fight Ichiro Miyata when the sakura blossoms bloomed. Both Kumi and Nanako would be Ippo's 'training seconds', helping by carrying water for him to drink and timing him. Not much but, for people not trained for boxing, they did what they could.

Soon enough the match came around and the two were left with a choice: who was going to confess first? It was nothing they could decide between themselves but they knew what would happen, the day of the fight. It was scheduled for the place where the two boxers should have met years ago; Ryogoku Kokugikan. Tickets to such an event were in high demand and short supply. The added fact this is a grudge match just pushed the price up even higher.

Ippo and the rest of the Kamogawa Corps had already arrived and were in the locker room by the time the two girls arrived. Hell, most of Ippo's friends and former opponents were there: Sendo who had come from Okinawa just for that match, Date, who was leaning back against a wall and seemed to calm everyone down with his mere presence, Volg, who had flown in from America especially to watch, Sanada, who was acting as the match's doctor and Gero/Naomichi had turned up and was singing the Japanese National Anthem in front of the nation.

Umezawa had been given the task of drawing up the match posters which he made a pretty good job of; each of the fighters had their faces split in half and pasted together in the middle, a classic rematch symbol.

Nekota had got in from the mountain with the entire Hachi Troop and was allowed special access by request of the coaches, knowing that Wanpo and Ippo would be glad to see him. Everyone was slightly surprised when Kumi and Nanako walked through the door being somewhat civil with each other. That was until Ryo walked through the door behind them. Thankfully, all the competing boxers were already changed so nothing punishable by flicker jab occurred.

Kimura and Itagaki were the openers, Kumi understood the pride they held within themselves. It's not every day you challenge your champions for the chance at the belt.

Nanako understood why Ippo was so nervous, he had wanted this fight for the past eight years; this was his goal and it was less than an hour away.

They both sat on either side of him as the locker room fell into silence until the first down happened. Some people from other gyms had been fighting a non-ranked match to warm up the crowd. In fact, tonight was also the East-Japan Rookie King's semi-final

Kimura was the first up, and also the last to stand up after. A fight into the 10th round was normal for him; a match up against Eleki Battery _again_ was not. It ended in a decision win to Kimura, giving him a single digit rank in the OPBF after beating the champion.

Kumi and Nanako both understood this; Kimura would have had to fight against Ryo had he not relinquished his title and moved onto bigger things and he now didn't have to fight the eldest Mashiba. A good thing too, Kumi recalled him saying something about having some dragon fish to fry. They both knew how scary Kumi's brother was in the ring after seeing his matches along with the spars against Manabu.

Itagaki went up next. Somehow, his fight was over before it started. His opponent was an old friend and rival: Imai. Imai had been giving a priority challenging right after he beat an overconfident 3rd ranker. This led to him taking the belt after just 2 more fights. If it had still been back in high school, then Itakagi would have lost. But what Imai didn't know and Itagaki was almost ashamed to admit was that he had been doing dodge training with Miyata and Mashiba. The combination of the dodges and natural speed he gained gave him an unofficial nickname during that match. He was Phantom. Imai was counterpunched with a Porcupine during the 2nd round and was knocked out by an uppercut in the 3rd.

Nanako understood more than others how proud her brother was; he had proven to the whole country that he was the best and while doing it finally really settled his old grudge with Imai. It was almost indescribable. The prize money from this fight was the equivalent to about 32 thousand dollars, it would help his family to no end. She was proud beyond belief for him.

Now it was Ippo's turn, and he was shaking. Not from excitement, this was fear. He'd come this far and what if he wasn't good enough. They both felt the shaking through their close proximity to him. Date offered some advice on meditation, which was refused. This was something that no amount of tea could cure. He was genuinely more terrified than he had been at any of his other matches,

This was something Kumi understood all too much, because this was how she felt every time she saw him or Ryo fight. But this was something she could do to help him. As he got up, she quickly got up before him and stood in front of him. She looked him in the eyes and tried to give him the courage he needed, through the only method she could think off.

Eyes started gawping as he slowly started kissing her back, the two joined together for a moment in the eternity they had been in the waiting room. She pulled back despite his small protests and whispered in his ear "Kick his ass, Ippo".

Ryo was the first to recover as Ippo started his walk towards the ring. He stopped him too by standing in front, as he leant in close to Ippo's ear, Ippo was expecting to hear a death threat and he wasn't too far from the truth; Ryo muttered in his usual gruff tones.

"Kumi cries when she sees you lose Makunouchi, and I don't like seeing my sister hurt. So don't make her cry or you'll have me to deal with. Go get that spoilt daddy's boy."

With that he walked past Ippo, back into the changing room with a hand grasping Ippo's shoulder tightly until he was out of his considerable arm length.

It was then that Nanako understood how much the two meant to each other, because she had spotted something that no one else had yet. As she watched Ippo turn around the corner to face his greatest trial, she saw it.

The shaking had stopped.

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A/N: I know its short but all opinions are welcome. Maybe this can stop the huge amount of Yaoi currently in the Fighting Spirit section. If you read this and agree with my sentiments, why not write some Hetero oneshots to add to the section. We all know it needs it.


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